Shipwreck [Paperback]

Louis Begley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2004

A mesmerizing novel of deception and betrayal from the acclaimed author of Wartime Lies and About Schmidt.
John North, a prize-winning American writer, is suddenly beset by dark suspicions about the real value of his work. Over endless hours and bottles of whiskey consumed in a mysterious café called L’Entre Deux Mondes, he recounts, in counterpoint to his doubts, the one story he has never told before, perhaps the only important one he will ever tell. North’s chosen interlocutor–who could be his doppelgänger–is transfixed by the revelations and becomes the narrator of North’s tale.

North has always been faithful to his wife, Lydia, but when one of his novels achieves a special success, he allows himself a dalliance with Léa, a starstruck young journalist. Coolly planning to make sure that his life with Lydia will not be disturbed, North is taken off guard when Léa becomes obsessed with him and he with her elaborate erotic games. As the hypnotic and serpentine confession unfurls, we gradually discover the extraordinary lengths to which North has gone to indulge a powerful desire for self-destruction.
Shipwreck is a daring parable of the contradictory impulses that can rend a single soul–narcissism and self-loathing, refinement and lust.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The moral disintegration of a man consumed by lust is the narrative frame of Begley's haunting new novel. Since the man, John North, is a celebrated author of literary novels, the subtext concerns the nature of the creative process. North tells his story to the nameless narrator in a series of monologues. In Paris after the publication of his new novel, North is interviewed by a young Vogue writer, Lea Morini, who later comes on to him in a blatant fashion. Although he has never been unfaithful to Lydia, the wife he adores-though she is a busy research physician, she selflessly caters to his demands-North persuades himself that a brief fling with Lea will revivify his work. Struggling with creative self-doubt, North also confesses to faults of selfishness, egotism, resentment and envy of Lydia's family, who are Jewish and wealthy, as compared to his own parents, who are old-guard Protestants. With scenes set in Paris, Martha's Vineyard, the Greek island of Spetsai, East Hampton and Hollywood, Begley enters Louis Auchincloss territory (although with sexual details that Auchincloss would never dream of), and proves himself an astute observer of different social classes and the minute variations in their behavior invisible to those outside the inner circle. But it's the meticulously revealed psychology of a man who doesn't like himself (yet believes that he's superior to most people) that propels the narrative here, as North surrenders to his prurient desire, while vowing that Lydia will never learn of his betrayal. Lea proves predatory in her pursuit, however, and the story's sense of dread and suspense mount as events move to a mesmerizing conclusion. Yet Begley ends the novel on a note of ambiguity, leading the reader to speculate whether the narrator is perhaps North's alter ego, and the entire story a brilliant exposition of the way authors can use the material of their lives to create brilliant fiction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

A happily middle-aged novelist of some repute wakes up one morning, decides his work is worthless (oh, those writers!), and immediately becomes embroiled with a young Frenchwoman who turns out to be both phenomenally demanding and, as things spiral downward, exceedingly difficult to shake. Havoc ensues—wild messages left on answering machines, illicit trysts in the Vineyard, a possible cooling off of his rich wife's affection. This predictable, curiously prurient tale—Begley's athletic bedroom scenes seem not so much experienced by the narrator as peered at by the reader—is dished up, over many hours, to an anonymous listener in a bar, apparently as a kind of Ancient Mariner Blue Plate special.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 243 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345464095
• ISBN-13: 978-0345464095
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #319,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "I was the author of my own expulsion from the Garden.", October 4, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Shipwreck (Hardcover)

Just as he did in his 1996 novel, About Schmidt, Begley here provides another character study of a middle-aged man who doubts his success and questions his good fortune. John North, like Schmidt, faces a crisis of conscience, questioning every aspect of his life while trying to avoid the messy consequences of his betrayal of his wife and his marriage. In this elegantly written novel, Begley presents North as a New York writer whose novels have won prizes, but who has endangered all he values in life by succumbing to the sexually voracious appetites of Lea Morini, a French journalist who has interviewed him for the Paris Vogue magazine. Totally committed to preserving his marriage, North also believes that he can continue his relationship with Lea because adultery is wrong "only if it is discovered."

In a bar called, L'Entre Deux Mondes, a "place between two worlds," or no-man's-land, North tells the story of his dalliance with Lea to his alter-ego, a "man so like me in appearance and demeanor." Hypersensitive to nuances and observant of the smallest details, however dense he may be about his personal life, North gives insights into the creative process which ring with truth, however much he may rationalize and temporize about his emotional weaknesses. His satirical comments about literary awards, the juries which determine the prizes, and the play-acting which accompanies the prize announcements provide a sense of realism.

Although North leads his companion (along with the reader) to think that he succeeds in solving the problem of Lea in the end, the reader cannot be sure that this is really the case, or that the concluding plot twist is truthful. North, the writer, believes that it is "a colossal mistake" to tell his story, as he has been doing, when he could be writing it. "That is how I could give it a proper conclusion," he tells us. The writer succeeds by "inventing: erasing what's inconvenient and bringing in whatever is useful and getting rid of what is improbable," he explains. The irony, of course, is that in the end, the story of North, Lydia, and Lea IS written and the reader has just read it. One can only wonder how much of the "inconvenient" has been "erased" here, either by Begley or by North, so that the dilemma of Lea can be resolved--if it is resolved. Mary Whipple

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force that is both steamy and suspenseful, October 11, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shipwreck (Hardcover)

Louis Begley's latest novel, SHIPWRECK, is a tour de force that captures the madness of a high-profile author caught in a torrid affair with another woman.

John North, Begley's protagonist in SHIPWRECK, seems to have it all. He has just been awarded one of literature's top prizes and he has an adoring wife. For the most part, North is living the American dream --- that is until one day in Paris when he begins to question the value of his work while waiting for a writer from Vogue magazine.

Lea, the young journalist, is immediately starstruck with North's presence and decides he must become another addition to her long list of conquests. Meanwhile North, who is old enough to be Lea's father, is completely smitten with the leggy French vixen and sparks begin to fly.

While it appears that North narrates SHIPWRECK while downing shot after shot of whiskey inside a mysterious Parisian café with another person, it doesn't take too long for the reader to realize that North is actually alone. Ultimately Begley, author of the highly acclaimed novel ABOUT SCHMIDT, allows the reader to decide whether or not North is talking to himself --- and that's the brilliance of this mesmerizing story.

Begley does a wonderful job portraying North's wife Lydia as the ultimate victim of his extramarital activities. North cheats on his wife throughout the novel with Lea, but he doesn't deny for a second that his adulterous behavior is wrong. Even while North enjoys the numerous trysts with Lea, he never stops thinking about his wife and realizes from the onset of the affair that he's headed for troubled waters.

Not only is North grappling with the realization that he's in over his head with the affair, he is also constantly questioning the value of his literary career. In some respects, SHIPWRECK is about more than just an acclaimed author dealing with an obsessed sexpot.

Begley delves into the issue of adultery --- how the French view it as compared to American social values. North also is dealing with a bout of alcoholism throughout the book, although his overindulgence with the bottle is again presented as an afterthought in an effort not to stray the reader from the true essence of the novel. But here again, Begley's brilliance as a writer is apparent as he illustrates to the reader that North uses alcohol frequently as medication.

In addition to the social ramifications, SHIPWRECK is also steamy and suspenseful. You can picture SHIPWRECK as a film, equipped with a star-studded cast similar to About Schmidt.

--- Reviewed by David Exum

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, October 17, 2003

By A Customer

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This review is from: Shipwreck (Hardcover)

Begley brings you into his world once again but, this time he is lewd....never crude always witty... this tale will hold your attention and leave you wondering how many characters such as the main one in this book truely exist...I know that I know at least 2!!